I've always been an online player but recently due to the decline of game quality and increase of min/maxing tryhards I've been getting burnt out. Only recently getting into singleplayer games, I picked up Skyrim because it was on sale on the PS Store. It was entirely different than all the other games I've played since then. Initially I got bored fast due to my comfort in the online sphere. I couldn't really go 30 mins without feeling alone or overwhelmed due to not understanding a lick of the lore. The only other singleplayer game I played you were playing a preestablished character with a linear storyline. Skyrim is different, it became hard for me to make choices in the game (I'm an indecisive person) and it hindered my progress of the game. I didn't know who my character was and I felt disconnected from everything around me. That is until I learned to immerse myself into the world and essentially roleplay as my character. I made a 'character sheet' of traits my character has and their moral alignment. Now I have SO MUCH fun with the game and I can enjoy every aspect of it. I no longer feel conflicted on choices nor do I feel disconnected. It makes me feel like a fleshed out character in the world. Now I'm barely started on my first playthrough and I already can see me playing a second time as a new character with a new story.
I remember this game coming out for the first time and I'm a bit bummed I didn't play it earlier, but better late than never I guess.

Baby boy was born at 36 weeks gestation a few days ago. He is in the NICU due to having a pleural effusion that seems to be clearing. He also has pulmonary hypertension but they hope no surgery is needed right now. He is stable and doing well in the NICU. He doesn’t suckle or eat on his own because he is learning to swallow and breathe. Things we take for granted. I feel bad for my wife because she was looking forward to experience being a woman and breast feeding him.
They no longer have him intubated just on oxygen with the canula at 2 liters so we are making progress. Blood work came back positive for trisomy21. Asked Doctor about a microarray but she said he doesn’t need one?that he as tri21? I thought there were 3 types from what I am learning online.
Can’t say my wife and aren’t a little scared and confused. I did sign up today for down syndrome network news letter. I guess I just don’t know where to start since we are embarking on this journey.
I hope to give him the best life I can. I know early intervention is important but what exactly does that entail? What therapies should I be looking for to begin with? What recommendations or resources?
My wife is grieving and so am I a little because he is our first and I guess we had so many ideas of our marriage having a little one that would be our legacy in terms of growing up and growing older, college, girlfriends, maybe marriage and children for him but now I see he may never experience some of those things and we should be counting our blessings.
I have so many thoughts in my mind like what kind of life will he have and be able to live? Will he live a long quality life? Will he have independence? I get worried about who will take care of him when we die as I am 38m and wife is 36f. Then I read that I can expect his life expectancy to be maybe 50-60’s years of age and that some DS people live till 70’s maybe.
I know I should just enjoy the moment now of him being a baby but seeing the videos on you tube and realizing how much time and effort he will need to thrive scares me because he just won’t have a typical childhood. But I will do my best to be strong and be there for him and I want to give him the best start and base possible to thrive.
I see there was an institute for people’s potential and also know I will need to sign up for all the therapies I can. I know also I need him to have great nutrition and healthy lifestyle so he can carry himself with it for as long as he can because after my wife and I are gone he will really have no one else besides maybe a few nephews and nieces. Do I need to set up a trust or anything like that now or accounts to grow so he will have something in the future to use?
Thank you for reading my grief and cries here. I appreciate your experience and expertise on what I can do to give my newborn baby boy the best quality of life he can have.

TW: mentions of suicide, self harm, brief mentions of physical, mental and child abuse along with a few other things that might trigger people.
I, (13-15 female) have a small group of friends. (All around 13-15, mainly female) But there has been some major drama in our friend group and I need advice on what to do.
I've had this friend who we'll call Sam. Sam and I have know each other since we were around 6 yrs old. We met in YeaPrimary 2. (For all the people not from the UK, that would be 1st grade)
We have known each other from then all the way until now. But this is when the drama starts.
For context, My group of friends has 4 people in it. (Including me) and one of these friends, who I'll call Rich, wanted to meet sam. But since Rich lives at least 4 hours away from us, I decided to set up an online game for us to play and for Sam and Rich to get to know each other and ask each other questions.
Sometime into the game I get a private message from Sam.
That's when Sam told me she had a crush on Rich. (We were less then 10 minutes into the game aka less then 10 minutes knowing each other) And she asked if she should tell him. I was (mostly) happy for my friend as she hasnt dated for a few years and told her to shoot her shot. And turns out, Rich liked Sam back. So they started dating.
BTW, Sam had just ghosted someone she dated online and did role-plays with, a few days before this happened. (Keep this in mind)
So some background, our entire group of friends play online role-playing games (In a private server) since we all like being able to make role-plays and storylines, except Sam. (She can be really picky)
This is how Sam and Rich basically went on dates. They also invited me to join them sometimes so they had someone else to play the "extra characters" in their role-plays. Their role-plays mostly consisted of guy x guy, mafia bosses and the typical cringe gacha storylines from 2018. I hated the 'maifa guy buys a slave' type tropes they did but I did it with them anyway because Sam always ended up getting mad and ignoring me if I said no or suggested something different.
This whole role-playing thing went on for a few months. That's when I saw Sam online with Mike. (Mike is the name of the person Sam dated online before Rich, I was friends with Mike and still was at the time despite their break up) I decided to join them and see what they were doing on a server together. (Sam had told me and Rich several times that she hated Mike and she always said he was a "alpha bad boy wannbe")
Once I joined I looked in the chat I saw a bunch of messages like Kisses softly (From Mike) and "You're sexy~" (From Sam) I was extremely confused and decided to ask Sam about this later when she wasn't on the server. She said something along the lines of "I was joking around, I never actually broke up with Mike 🤣".
So I was extremely confused and asked Rich if he knew about this.
That's where it all went to shit afterwards. (Don't worry, it gets worse)
To give a short rundown since this post is already long, Sam was cheating on Mike with Rich while also cheating on Rich with Mike as they both though that Sam dated them and had blocked the other person. When Rich 1st confronted her she said they were in a polyamous relationship. (They were not) This kept happening until eventually Mike blocked everyone (Except me) and really didn't talk to any of us. (Or so I thought.)
I always thought that Rich and Sam shouldn't be dating but I stayed out of it because Sam is the only friend I can really talk to and hang out with, without feeling anxious.
Then I found out that Sam was cheating on Rich AGAIN with a girl from her class called Jaime. Then she cheated AGAIN with a girl from my class who I'll call Autumn.
So not only did Sam cheat on Rich with 3 different people. She did it SEVERAL TIMES WITH THOSE PEOPLE.
I eventually distanced myself from the group as a whole. (I also was in hospital which helped me to ignore all of the drama as I was recovering from surgery)
That's when I found a message in the group chat. (The group chat had me, Sam, Jaime and one of Sam's friends in it as well) The message said "Imagine if Rich knew about you dating me and Autumn 🤣💀" from Jaime.
I told Rich literally everything including screenshots and evidence I had. He didn't believe me until he asked Sam which to that she laughed about it and told him that her adhd made her do bad things. Rich then went into a major depressive episode and he wouldn't respond at all to anyone.
Rich even cut himself and attempted suicide. (He has home issues and several mental illnesses, which Sam knew of) Thankfully he survived.
But here's the thing, Sam and Rich GOT BACK TOGETHER AFTER WHAT HAPPENED.
I was absolutely fucking horrified by this as it seemed to be a severely toxic and maybe even abusive relationship (Psychologically) since Rich had Bipolar and Sam used to blame him for acting weird and blamed him for her cheating.
Here's where I think I became the asshole.
I made a throwaway account and took screenshots of everything and sent them to Jaime, Autumn, Rich, our group of friends and basically everyone who knew of the drama. Which included most of the school. (And even random people from other school that knew some of the gossip)
Then it got revealed that Sam had ONLINE SEX WITH MIKE AND RICH WHILE SAM WAS DATING BOTH OF THEM AND AFTER MIKE SUPPOSEDLY BLOCKED HER!!
And then it turns out that Sam, who is bisexual, called Richs gay BFF( I'll call him Matt) a gay bastard and the F-slur. TWICE.
Ans then it turns out, after Sam had cheated on Rich the first or second time, Rich started DATING MATT AND THEY ONLY BROKE UP BECAUSE RICH FELT GUILTY.
Then Sam and Rich got into a massive fight which lead to Rich attempting suicide again. Sam said, and i quote, "womp womp🙄" when told about Richs second sucide attempt and also then Rich told her that his cat had died.
They then broke up and he blocked her on everything.
I felt horrible. I felt like I shouldn't of told everyone what Sam did and I shouldn't of put myself into their relationship..
I felt really depressed and guilty and I thought (and still do) that it was all my fault..
I honestly think I'm the asshole and I shouldn't of done anything considering I don't have any dating experience at all and I don't have any of the disorders Sam or Rich has...
But I've always been told to get a second opinion on everything so I wanted to ask Reddit. (Not the most logical way to do it but I'm desperate af)
So Reddit, AITAH?
I'm sorry if the spelling or wording is off, I'm writing this at 3:13 am and I have school at 8:30. But I am desperate to hear someone else's opinion on this as I feel i am going insane. I'll try and answer any questions as best as I can.
(Ps. Sam has dyslexia and supposedly has adhd as well which she uses as an excuse for why she cheated and blamed Rich. She also used the excuse that her home life is terrible. Which it is. Rich has autism, adhd, bipolar, lack of awareness and is physically and metally abused by his parents. And before I forget, my mother was walking home from work one night and saw Sam HITTING her MOTHER with a stick and laughing about it)
I will honestly appreciate ANY help or opinion given on my situation..

I’m pretty new to poker with all my experience coming from free to play apps such as monopoly poker and a few cash games with my buddies.
I’d like to try my luck on some real online sites, but would like to learn some theory before I lose the house.
Does anyone have any poker theory book recommendations for a player like myself?
Preferably something that starts right at the basics and progresses from there.
Thanks reddit

ARE YALL TIRED OF JOINING LEAGUES THAT DIE RIGHT AWAY? WELL LOOK NO FURTHER.. WE HAVE A LEAGUE THAT IS WELL RAN AND ACTIVE FOR YOU TO JOIN AS LONG AS YOU FOLLOW THE RULES!
League Features:

• 🔥 Game of the Week (GOTW) Picks and Rewards: **Showcase your skills and earn attribute upgrades in a betting format
• 📺 Online Personalities: **Analyst and TV personalities that write articles within things going on around the league to make things more interesting
• 💪 Player Development Incentives: **We offer extra incentives to develop players, ensuring every team has the opportunity to shine and grow throughout the season.
• 🎮 Realistic Gameplay Emphasis: **Not suitable for MUT players or formation spammers. We enforce specific rules such as Strafing, One hot route adjustment on offense, SubLB rule, ability requests, no custom playbooks allowed, and custom game sliders to make the game feel more authentic.

League Settings:

• Madden Difficulty: All-Madden
• Simulation Duration: 48 Hours
• Crossplay Enabled: PS5, Xbox, PC
• Simulation Style Rules: We prioritize authentic gameplay with custom sliders that mirror real-life attributes and tendencies.
• Current Season Status: FA Stage 1

Team Availability:

• Cowboys, and potentially bears, texans, bucs and patriots
• If you're inactive don't even bother you will be removed very quickly.

Discord Link: https://discord.gg/Yyq3M5G5aW

I expected to hate him and to atleast tolerate him enough to go through the series and..... I like him? He not my favorite ( that goes to Xander & Vida) but he didn't really annoyed me, I'm shock that he doesn't give up or complains as much as people tend to fixate on and even then he didn't just give up just because. My biggest complaint that I agree is that a noticeable amount of episodes of him feel unnecessary. Like that one episode where he got lost in a dimension with that horse. To be honest, Nick had wasted potential and he could've been a great & a unique red ranger at the same time. It seem like they was going to angle of him being a pessimist hot shot but have the redeeming qualities of being courageous and always want to help out but ehh. He does blend well with the cast when they not try to make him "the light" atleast. I could missing some moments where he were very unbearable.

ARE YALL TIRED OF JOINING LEAGUES THAT DIE RIGHT AWAY? WELL LOOK NO FURTHER.. WE HAVE A LEAGUE THAT IS WELL RAN AND ACTIVE FOR YOU TO JOIN AS LONG AS YOU FOLLOW THE RULES!
League Features:

• 🔥 Game of the Week (GOTW) Picks and Rewards: **Showcase your skills and earn attribute upgrades in a betting format
• 📺 Online Personalities: **Analyst and TV personalities that write articles within things going on around the league to make things more interesting
• 💪 Player Development Incentives: **We offer extra incentives to develop players, ensuring every team has the opportunity to shine and grow throughout the season.
• 🎮 Realistic Gameplay Emphasis: **Not suitable for MUT players or formation spammers. We enforce specific rules such as Strafing, One hot route adjustment on offense, SubLB rule, ability requests, no custom playbooks allowed, and custom game sliders to make the game feel more authentic.

League Settings:

• Madden Difficulty: All-Madden
• Simulation Duration: 48 Hours
• Crossplay Enabled: PS5, Xbox, PC
• Simulation Style Rules: We prioritize authentic gameplay with custom sliders that mirror real-life attributes and tendencies.
• Current Season Status: FA Stage 1

Team Availability:

• Cowboys, and potentially bears, texans, bucs and patriots
• If you're inactive don't even bother you will be removed very quickly.

Discord Link: https://discord.gg/Yyq3M5G5aW

So I am struggling with these guys. Yhey are Hugo and Hermoine Honeydew that come from the chapel set. Now, I was sure that they are white bunnies, but photos online almost seem like they are Periwinkle! Depending on the light, even mine looks Periwinkle sometimes. So am I losing it and these are actually not white bunnies at all? Where there more than one version of these? Also, how the heck do I cagegorize them? They have pink inside the ears, so they are not Snow-warrens. But we have the Snow rabbits now, so do they fit into that family? Same pink noses, pink inner ears? Although they seem to lose a bit of their bright whiteness over time, they still seem close in colour to my Snowbunny bride. So my big concern, is where to place them if I want to add them to a visual list by markings to id? Make a separate page just for them and maybe the snowbunny bride or sort them in with the Snow family? It is driving me crazy and I know I am over thinking this, but still - tbis puzzle is now keeping me from making any progress.

I am now older (43f) and wiser and far more subtle in my petty revenge ...but, at this time? I was younger (21) angry, petty, spurred on my an equally petty friend (22f then), and he deserved it.
I had a get together for Halloween with a few friends. It was the usual early 20s social situation with drinks, cards and tequila shots. (I know... I know.)
A guy I had previously had a fling with (truly nothing serious--he was just tall, cute as all hell and had adorable dimples but our personalities didn't mesh) was invited as a friend. No big deal.
Card game turned into Texas Hold Em and bizarre dares after you were out of poker chips. My "ex" was losing BADLY. What started as us daring him to strip somehow escalated to him running outside, nude and in 2 feet of snow, to the pond behind the apartment buildings to acquire a cup of water... and then escalated to him going, in VERY sloppy drag, to the grocery store to buy an eggplant, lube, and condoms.
Now... this is all ridiculous already. (Tequila is a bad decision, kids!) A truly memorable but insane night that can ONLY be survived or created in your early 20s.
My friend (who spurred me on) and him began flirting and things escalated a bit between them. There were photos of him in drag taken, and photos of him with my friend as well.
They made plans to see a movie a couple days later after a few calls...
He never showed up and then ghosted her.
Could we have blown it off and moved on?
Absolutely.
Did we?
Hell freaking no.
We did a bit of online stalking and found out he not only HAD A GIRLFRIEND but was LIVING with her! (Where do these people find the time for this... and how do you NOT ask questions when your man doesn't come home?!)
We hatched a plan.
We took the photos and printed them... of him in drag flirting with my friend, nude with the cup, and doing lap dances on guys in drag.
We sent them, 1 by 1 in an order telling a story... every other day... by mail... to his girlfriend.
Did we stop there?
HELL NO.
We signed him up for drag clothing catalogs and sex toys created especially for gay men. We sent him about $200 worth of the most bizarre "eggplant" items we could find including straws, a hat that sort of resembled a penis shaped Pope hat, etc.
After 2 weeks of those packages... that we made sure would be delivered when HE was gone and SHE was home (but addressed to him and, in quotes, his goofy name from that night) we did 1 more thing...
20 lbs of the most powder fine glitter we could find in a glitter bomb.
She dumped him within a month... and he's a cheater to this day in his relationships.
The lesson?
Don't cheat... and don't piss off 2 petty women at the same time.

Sorry for the long post but I really want to see if anyone relates and how to deal with it.
All my life I've had vasovagal syncope (not sure if that's what it is, but I'll call it that because I think it's what it is). Usually it would happen as a kid at the doctors when I would get shots. Didn't happen every time but it did happen. They always told me it was because I got myself so worked up over it that once it was over I felt so much sudden relief I had that reaction because it all happened faster than my body could keep up with. Also one time when I was 10 I got sick on a cruise. I experienced intractable vomiting, high fever and other things. I was given an injection at the medical center on the ship (I have no idea what they injected me with, I assume antiemetics, I just remember it was particularly painful) and I collapsed when I tried to walk out of the room afterward.
Nowadays some of my triggers are weird. I get the main ones like blood draws and injections, but also simply reading about procedures such as nasogastric tubes, colonoscopies, spinal taps and things like that are also triggers. I remember nearly fainting in high school health class when we were learning about epidurals. Then years after that I also nearly fainted when I found out what the initial COVID test entailed (the nasopharyngeal swab...ugh). When I am exposed to those bizarre triggers, it's very weird. I'll get all squeamish and weird. I'll start squirming, holding my breath, moving around and grimacing. I can't explain why I do this, it just kinda happens as a response to information about invasive procedures.
The actual experience is horrible. I don't know how to explain how bad it is, it's something you really have to experience to know what it's like. I don't JUST pass out. There's a period of misery before that. I'll start feeling off, then the room seems bright but dark at the same time if that makes any sense. Then my vision gets all weird, tunnel vision and sometimes I'll see a bunch of colors. Then comes the intense nausea and malaise, and I'll think I'm about to vomit. At this point I'll usually be asking for water and to lay down, but all I wanna do is curl up on the floor. I'll want someone to hold me. I'll feel really hot and I'll be dripping with sweat. I'll feel dizzy and won't be able to see straight. I'll go super pale. I'll always have this frantic terrified look on my face. Not sure what it looks like, but I know I make it and it's to kind of express that I'm not feeling well at all and I don't know how to verbally express it. Kind of like a "help me, I feel terrible and I don't know how to express how it feels at this moment" kind of look. Eventually my hearing becomes muffled as if I'm underwater. It happened recently when I was getting a skin abscess treated and they were taking swabs to check the bacteria. It was a particularly bad episode though. Not even drinking water and laying down could help much. It did help but didn't solve it. Eventually I leaned forward and hugged my legs to my chest and I recovered from the episode doing that.
The nurse that witnessed it told me it was a vasovagal response. Then I was told it might've been a panic attack. Having a lifelong history of anxiety, I know my panic attacks and they're different depending on the trigger, but I know this was not simply a panic attack. Due to having health anxiety I guess the vasovagal episodes happen and maybe panic attacks happen at the same time as a reaction, so maybe that's why it's so miserable but I don't know. Then I'll typically get a bad headache on one side of my head but it'll usually resolve within 15 or so minutes.
I know this sounds dramatic (I mean, the episodes ARE dramatic and I have no idea why my body goes that far) but I'm not trying to exaggerate. They feel HORRIBLE. Having anxiety on top of it is even worse. Usually I don't actually end up technically becoming unconscious, but sometimes I do. It's mainly presyncope. When I get blood tests they will have me keep my eyes open and keep my head up (despite it being very difficult) and by that point I'm wanting to beg them to just let me pass out so the feeling goes away.
Any idea what this is? When I first feel an episode coming on I get so frustrated with myself and I usually roll my eyes and think "oh come on...great, another episode, why am I so squeamish over everything and why am I having such an overreaction and why does nobody else have this?"
If anyone has anything similar to this, please share. Any differential diagnoses? Someone mentioned dysautonomia to me but I'm not sure. Whatever it is, I'm sure my anxiety exacerbates it but I know for sure it's not just anxiety.

January 29, 2384 - the day of the last total eclipse is when the raid began. “The day of the sun's false shadow” as people call it now. We, humans, were an unsuspecting victims in a universe habited by multiple vastly stronger existences. When it happened the world had been thrown into utter chaos and shock. The sun had been completely covered by the moon and this event was supposed to last only a short while however after two hours sunlight had still not shown its face upon the earth's surface. This was the beginning of humanity's greatest tribulation. After days of the sun's light not being shown the planet's temperature began to drop and to compensate for this people began to create massive fires but this did not stop the problem. Photosynthesis in plants began to stop, making it harder for humans to breathe. This made humans build labs and create artificial oxygen, which took care of that problem but humans still began to die from hypothermia, frozen oceans, and forced stoppage of blood flow. After two weeks, the sun finally revealed itself and all hope had been restored in humanity collectively only for half the population to be massacred in an instant. “The watchers” had been slowly waiting with armies to colonize our planet and technology beyond our wild comprehension. Technology we can only dream of had been shown and used right before our very eyes and for the first time in all of human history, we had been united as one in our mutual fear and horror. 2 months later, 90% of humanity has been wiped out and the few who remained were used as slaves to cultivate energy. With the use of a Dyson shell, nearly 80% of the sun's energy and heat had been directed into maintaining their energy. Amongst all this time, humanity had collectively agreed to fight back. This began the creation of the liberation group, “the Plague”. These groups of people were the last hope of humanity and carried an extremely large ambition and dream on their shoulders. While “the watchers” were extremely advanced this doesn't change the fact that they were fallible and this group of people were their scourge. They didn't have the military might nor the advanced brain to even keep up against “the watchers” but through slavery and forced labor, the human body began to develop into something stronger. They began to surpass their limits and break the barriers that the human mind had once placed on themselves. Through the selective farming of “the watchers” a new plant had developed that was essentially a stimulant to the human body and a limit breaker for their physical capabilities. At first, they began by using strong levels of acid to corrode the buildings and structures and then stopping their heartbeat to give the impression of suicide so they could not be caught, however, they did not die due to a new system developed from the human's newfound evolution. Due to the strict regimen that we had to follow, we knew all of the places where they would and wouldn't be, all the blind spots of the planet, all the places where they were in close proximity to a chasm, and all the places where we were at a disadvantage. We used the blindspots as bases and hideouts where we could plan our vengeance. After a year of just observing their behavior, habits, bodily functions, and even their schedules we developed a hypothesis that 24 seconds after 7:39 PM we have approximately 19 minutes and 53 seconds in Greenland where we are not being watched nor located. We used this small window of time to gather the fundamental items we needed to fight back and build the foundation for our organization. We gathered food, plants, water, armor, and weapons. We realized that they were immune to cutting/slicing damage and could only be hurt through blunt attacks. With this knowledge, we developed a specific fighting style and used that small time frame to train others in it. We adapted to the harsh conditions and created clothes using spare pieces from “the watchers” specially made for insulating heat, weighing less, and being less penetrable by outside attacks. After a year every person on the planet was a master at this martial arts and had fully developed a counter to all technology that “the watchers” had. However, we could not initiate immediate war on them so we needed a plan. We came up with the idea to have one of our strongest members report to the watchers about our activity and give away one of our bases. This created the false notion that not only did they have someone working as a double agent on their side but also they knew where we would be so they could catch us off guard. We were all there like they expected and they attacked like planned. We had all moved our weapons, armor, and vital items into a different base but kept some things where they attacked to make them think we had not gotten far but this was a dud. Eventually, we had all “died” and had our bodies left at that place as a sign of victory on their side. However, because of this, their ego had grown and they began to underestimate us. The surveillance had gotten weaker as they assumed their “double agent” would tell them everything as a trade for luxury living. We knew that physical power would not be enough so our smartest man collaborated to develop a virus specifically made for their genetic makeup which took about 5 years to extract small strands of DNA without them realizing. Once the virus had been created the incidence began and eliminated more than 60 percent of “the watchers” because of how they were too distracted trying to develop a cure and the vast amount of them dying, we had gained more time to develop our forces and we began to ingest various harmful substances but in small doses in order to gain resistance to any harmful poisons and acids. After new children start to be born this began the origin of a new human species. One massively stronger, smarter, more durable, and with all the immunities and benefits without the downsides. With the birth of this new generation, all of the human race had experienced a collective euphoria. We had begun to secretly train these kids for years and strengthen them in a way the human race had never been before. Due to the circumstances of their birth, they had also developed a strong ability for adaptation and healing factor which ultimately led to humans finally being able to physically compete with “the watchers”. However, we were still lacking in numbers despite the virus taking a vast majority of “the watchers” away. Some of us grew confident and because we were now physically capable some believed we could win the war while others believed we couldn’t yet. This created division within our ranks but did not necessarily break our ranks but that was all depending on your interpretation. We gathered our smartest men and women to make a plan to initiate war, and for 14 days they were stuck in ruminative thought. 2 years passed and we had finally built up the numbers, technology, and physical capabilities to contend with the watchers. Now on the day of the war, all of our strongest soldiers imitated the attack. But this time they were an unsuspecting victim on a planet habited by a stronger species. During the war we had counters for nearly everything the watchers could dish out but one thing we were not aware of was the fact that the watchers could transform into a smaller but faster, stronger, and more durable form. This form took the shape of humankind. So closely related that it struck fear into the hearts of many. Not only was this extremely off-putting but the revelation that came along with it had altered the perception of humanity as we know it. The war had been put to a halt, and all forced fighting in the war had directed their attention to one watcher and one watcher alone. All forces had been completely immobilized and fighting back was no longer capable. With this, the words that had been spoken out of the watcher were a revelation that humanity had not even considered possible. “We are not your enemies. We are you but from the future. In our original timeline, we have been attacked by a species even higher than us. We had been pushed to the brink of extinction and our last hope was only to go back in time in hopes that if we returned to our past selves we could help evolve even more to contend with the world-ending threats from the future. This siege we had laid on this planet and the forced evolution, progression, and tragedy among humankind also brought extreme progression in human capabilities. All of you are vastly superior to your previous forms because of our arrival. While we acknowledge our methods were not the ideal we had no other option. This was the fastest and most effective method to progress the human species although we could not allow the human race to have this win. It would boost the ego of your race and our all of you in a state of comfort and stagnation. With this being said we resign from our participation in this war and would greatly appreciate it if you allowed us to help humanity rebuild and donate technology.” Speechless as to what humanity has just heard we just stood there in utter shock and disbelief. Not a single soul knew what to say and all of humanity had stood in confusion. One man spoke “how do we know this is true” the watcher proceeded to show pictures and videos of them being massacred while some stood in human form and others did not. They showed is this along with the words, “we initiated this war as a way to put the human race through natural selection and eliminate all the weak human being who would not be able to contribute to our growth and success in any upcoming battle. So with that being said what is your decision?” Our leader, and the smartest woman among us had stated, “We humbly decline this offer as we would prefer to evolve by our capabilities and we have already surpassed you so what can you possibly teach us.” After this being stated the war had been started again and the watchers had been for the first time since the “great cleansing” began utterly defeated and annihilated. With the war being won, humanity being victorious, and newfound abilities being discovered humanity had been thrown into an era of peace and prosperity. All tragedies had been blamed on the watchers and for the first time humanity had an ever lasting peace and a perfect utopia where everyone agreed and benefited from each other. With this, we have been vastly improving and slowly but steadily rebuilding our planet and all of humankind. Our members started family’s and genuinely enjoyed the life they were living once again. Everyone acting coyly and with one another was a beautiful side to behold. Everything was perfect until the same monsters who killed the watchers, showed up to eliminate us due to fear of what we could evolve into this time we had no way to fight back and our ranks were already diminished or severely weakened. How would humanity be able to survive this time???Most people had been massacre and captures to be experimented on. Very few of us had actually managed to get away from them and we had only been able to do this through shadow banishment. It was a skill that we had acquired through the technology of the watchers. Living in the void was not the ideal lifestyle as it was ruthless, dirty, and unsafe but the chances of surviving here were massively higher than surviving on earth. Only a hundred of us remained and the human species were basically extinct. With this small group left we had resorted to instead of trying to repopulate and exact revenge immediately we would take the short route. In the void monsters had no sort of civilization and the only rule amongst these creatures were the strongest prevail. There was no sort of rule, order, or even a sense of respect between these monsters. The weak were prey for the strongest, and the strong were killed by the stronger. We took this as an opportunity to not only increase our strength by training and battling but also amassing an empire. The remind of humanity collectively agree that we would bring order and peace to the void. The best way to go through this was by entering the tournament. The monsters held tournaments to watch the strongest fight and kill each other for pure fun. We joined this colosseum and while at first we easily overwhelmed our opponents we had slowly been facing harder and harder opponents as we rose through the ranks. By the time even a single one of us was defeated we had made a name and gained the attention of multiple monsters within the void. We were not necessarily respected or followed but we were feared and simultaneously an opponent that monsters wished to fight. After this we had developed our own fighting ring in which monster could fight and battle against us and only us. We implied a set of rules in this ring. Rule 1; no killing Rule 2; reservations must be made to fight Rule 3; both parties must consent Rule 4; do not make the fight personal Rule 5; it must be between a human and monster. These rules created a sense of security amongst the monsters and while driven by their desire of battle they also abided by the rules. Eventually after fighting throughout the tournament and gaining more traction with the monsters in it. Eventually even the most high ranked demons had begun to make reservations in for our fights. Our strongest soldiers had been the ones to fight them as nobody else can really compete. The first fight had been with a demon who had the ability of immunity. This ability did not only revolve around internal status effects but also could be applied to his physical body. The fight had been the biggest one the ring had ever experienced and it did not disappoint. Eventually we had won and this through the whole entire void and everyone in it into an uproar. Monsters who never even bothered to fight had shown up to battle. The strongest monster in the void and the only monster with a sense of order, self, and purpose had shown up to fight all humans by himself. He agreed that if we win he would pledge allegiance to us all and work under our rule however if we lose we will be killed. This monster bore an extreme resemblance humans. The structure of his body and the contents of it were all human like however he claimed not to be. This monsters name was angel and he possessed the ability to manipulate and control all matter with the sole exception of any other organic material that resided outside of his own body. Our commander and strongest member amongst us was the person to fight him. His name was Alexander and despite the fact that we didn't have any singular special powers like him however our physical bodies were honed greater than any other species in existence. They were evenly matched in speed and strength and even in our capabilities to rapidly heal from damage. They had been evenly matched in all physical ability and the fight had ultimately come to hand to hand combat and who could last longer. Angel was unmatched in combat and had barely even been hit due to how experienced in martial arts he had been; however throughout the fight Alexander had been naturally adapting to his fighting style and developing counters to everything. Our natural ability to adapt to all attacks and effects placed upon us had given a clear win condition; however time was needed to actually see and fully understand how to possibly adapt to everything. The longer the fight took the higher the chance of Angel losing. Alexander had slowly but steadily been adapting and developing new combat styles to counter everything angle could do and even had grown to use his own severed limbs as projectiles and use his blood as a coat over all other objects to cancel his ability to use his field. Angel's main ability had been to control the air around him to increase speed, power, and even get a sense of what his opponent would be doing before it happened. After finally adapting to this his body had begun to heat itself in an attempt to turn it into vapor and due to blood being organic matter of another life form he would no longer have control of the air and the surrounding area. After this the fight had come down to solely base physical capabilities and for 10 minutes they had been mindlessly brawling and instantaneously healing through the damage taken. After a long period of time their healing began to slow down due to bodily fatigue. Biting, punching, scratching, kicking, anything you can think of, they did it. That fight was a bloodbath unlike anything else and in the end they both passed out on the floor with nothing left besides their bodies soaked and bathed in each other's blood. After they had both been knocked unconscious their bodies had been left there in anticipation for them to awaken. The ring filled beyond capacity as people argued and fought about who would awaken first. In anticipation for this once in a lifetime event the whole void had stopped with all its attention. Angel was the first to awaken and he had been exhausted and utterly stunned as to how he actually had gotten knocked out. He had the opportunity to kill his opponent as he had technically won the battle but out of respect for his opponents strength and capabilities he possessed. After the fight had finished Angel had left and was never to be seen again. After 2 weeks Alexander had awoken in a small shack being guarded by one other human and confused after everything had been explained to him he had went around looking for angel but he was not to be found. After awakening Alexander had been massively stronger than before. Due to the physical state his body was put in and all the damage that he had taken from Angel his body had adapted and become more dense in order to take all the attacks while sustaining the least amount of damage possible. After his awakening this began our political revolution. We had now implemented the ring with rules and gotten multiple monsters to follow by these rules and with them being accurate to filling orders more now we had decided to initiate a leadedictator in a sense. The top 5 strongest creatures in the void had been the leaders and this had consisted of Alexander at 1, 2 other demons at 2 and 3, and humans to fill the final spots. We began to implement laws and rules in order to stop the mass murder and destruction happening and within a small time frame we had created structures similar to the ones of the earth. Houses and gyms in order to train in hopes of becoming stronger and even professional combat sports. After 2 months time had passed we had developed a military with our best members in it and humbly had began to repopulate. All this had been done in hopes of regaining the earth and defeated our oppressors. Fast forward 1 months the and the siege of the home planet had begun. They had not been suspecting us however took the preparations in case we had come. Based and soldiers set up in every corner of the world to fight back when the time came we did come back. With this an all out war for the fate of humanity had began and the extinction of either race lay in the balance between life and death.
After the war had began all forces had been deployed to different areas of the planet. Groups that had worked together best being deployed to one part while our strongest being deployed to another. At first we had been nearly even in everything besides technology. They had everything that we lacked and this gave them the combative edge. However despite lacking in technology we made up for it in numbers. Most fights had consisted of large groups of monsters fighting against one or two of our enemy and this has convoluted till their forces had been somewhat deployed. The one on one fights had been more dragged out and heavily impacted the war. Our strongest soldiers fighting against their strongest soldiers in a one on one fight. Everyone has put their all into this battle and left nothing to spare. Our second and third strongest soldiers had the most impact in this war not because of who they fought but because of what they could do. They didn’t actually have abilities specific to them but instead they were born with a type of energy within their bodies in which they called “synergy”. This synergy could be used to amp all their physical abilities but also be used to crate and use techniques or even use techniques that are specific to the traits of the individuals soul. The strength and physical stats of the individual depended on how much synergy they had at their disposal and while some of them were able to gather strength from other life forms it was not a very common occurrence. Alexander fought someone with the ability to control and manipulate momentum. They used synergy and funneled it through all objects of their choice to increase or decrease of momentum of that. This didn’t do much on a wide scale and was a very basic ability but in a solo battle this made it extremely hard to land attacks and even when they were landed they did little to no damage. The most important one to kill had the ability to manipulate all probability. Meaning the likelihood of us even winning this war was less then .0001 percent with them being alive. Whether it was because of a collection of small losses or one major loss did not make a difference. All odds were stacked against us as long as this person remained on the battlefield. In simple terms the whole war relied on the defeat of that person. Our second in command and smartest soldier, “Cassandra” decided to take this upon herself. She was the only one among us who possessed an innate ability and was viewed as the most special soldier but this came at a cost. She gained a talent no other human possessed but in return she no longer had the natural ability to adapt to all circumstances. Her ability was to take the form and attributes of any and all creature she knew to exist. Mythical or not she could take the shape and ability of these creatures and use it as long as she desired. However she could only use one at a time and had to wait 30 seconds in between shifting. Our third in command, “Vladimir” had took the roll of fighting their head technologist. While his opponent had not specialized in battle he still was one of the most dangerous and this was because of his ability to create machines as small as molecular level that shared his thoughts and emotions. These machines were used to repair his body in case on injury, transport information, invade any opponents body and restrict movement, anything that he deemed possible could be done with the use of those machines. But he chose to mainly use them as sort of technological tools to help him further advance his society. The rest of our battles were not nearly as important and were mostly group battles. Afro the beginning portion of Alexander’s fight he had been losing severely and could barely land any attacks at all. After a few minutes of getting beat down and not being able to fight back the adaptation process began. The first adaptation was only a temporary solution to the problem but his body had been explosively shooting out sharpened pieces of his bones and even using tiny droplets of blood as weapons. However this was only a temporary solution because eventually those bones and blood just started being slowed also. The final adaptation and most effective one happened when his body created a function in which he can store kinetic energy and then release it at any given time. This allowed him to rapidly boost his speed whenever his momentum had been slowed and basically cancel out his opponent power. However this still did not stop how his opponent made himself significantly faster. After this the fight had been more tipped into Alexander’s favor but still not enough to actually win. Throughout the progression of the fight Alexander had been gathering more and make friction between the clothes he had and his feet running against the floor. After gathering as much friction and kinetic energy as possible he let it all explode and release all over his body. This altered the form of his body. His body and skin began to form cracks and let off steam. He began to turn dark red and his eyes became shot with blood. His body was slowly crumbling and deteriorating. He had 5 minutes left to defeat his opponent and if he did not then his body would crumble and he would die. Due to his rapid healing factor he had a chance of living if he was able to end the fight within 5 minutes and give himself some time to rest but this all depended on how much he could get done. The battle had been tilted all the way in Alexander’s favor and had no longer been a battle. It had turned into if his opponent could outlast him in those 5 minutes. Brutally beating his opponent and taking full advantage of the situation Alexander did not relent on his rampage. Stopping his momentum no longer mattered and it seemed like the more he tried the faster Alexander got. Steam had been blowing off him. In the end he had managed to kill his opponent within those 5 minutes and had been at deaths door. Cassandra had began her battle and had been absolutely obliterating her opponent. The ability to shape shift from dragons, unicorns, hydras, centaurs, and any mythical creature you can think of. At first she had taken the abilities of a dragon but throughout the fight she had been developing into stronger and more complex creatures. After a while her opponent had been decreasing the probability of her even landing attacks. This made it extremely hard for her to fight and maintain the advantage. She took the appearance and abilities of the mythical deity sun wukong. Due to sun wukong being a monkey that ascended into a higher power he is one of the only gods that she can transform into. After this she gained the ability to not only make clones out of every hair on her body but also multiply the power of each clone. While she does not possess every power sun wukong has she possesses some of them and the most prominent ones. This fight had been a one sided beatdown and only lasted longer than 2 minutes because the probability of each clone attacking each other had been raised to its maximum percentage. Despite this every 1000 punches that had been thrown at least 1 hit her opponent and this was more than he could handle from millions of clones. Vladimir had no special capabilities; he only possessed an extremely honed body and battle experience. At first they had been near equal but the battle began to take a turn when the tiny bugs began to infest his body and eat him from the inside. Due to his advanced healing factor he had been able to stop any significant damage and fight with mild discomfort but this did not change that if he continued in for a longer period of time then he would inevitably be defeated by these bugs and killed. This made the battle a race against time. Expending everything his body had to offer and leaving not a single drop of energy left. Pushing his body to the absolute peak and physical limit. Even going beyond the known capabilities of his body he began to evolve into a higher form. He did not develop any new type of power or gain a newfound power but he did increase and rapidly evolve his physical capabilities. He began to punch with such speed and strength that he created shockwaves from breaking the sound barrier. With this his punches became far more explosive and with every punch thrown he was exploding giant parts of his opponents body and everything within the perimeter. With no regard to his surroundings the battle had destroyed everything in sight and left them fighting in a bare wasteland. Basically erasing everything within line of his punches he began to annihilate his opponent with speed and strength unmatched. Due to all the tiny machines within his body he regrow limbs and was able to counter attack with near no fatigue or even lag in his action. While pushing his body to its absolute limit his body had given up on him. Rapidly healing from constant damage, pushing muscles to their utmost limit, moving, attacking at his highest speed, and even understanding/ perception of all attacks massively faster then he could ever before. Due to all this his body began to give out and in the midst of battle he fell and was unable to recover. No longer able to fight back and maintain the performance he had, he was defeated. Being eaten from the inside, limbs being torn from his body, and being damaged so much that not even his regeneration could keep up. His head had been ripped off his body and with this humanity had suffered its first major loss. After this all other forces began to gain support from all his other bugs and humanities forces had been rapidly depleting. With loss in sight humanity had lost hope and accepted defeat. Right when humanity had accepted defeat and all hope had been lost the king had shown himself once again. Like an Angel coming to bless all of humanity he had run through and obliterated all enemies of humanity. Destroying everything in sight and bringing all enemies to his feet he had saved humanity and restored hope and just like that he had disappeared into the void once again. There was no explanation as to how or why but in that moment all of humanity knew who we would be forever grateful and indebted to. Not many opponents had been left standing but the few who were, were extremely weakened and overwhelmed by numbers. After this decisive battle humanity had been in a state of joy and excitement out of their new victory. Once all the excitement and happiness from winning had worn off all the sorrow and remorse from the losses had come rushing in. All the lost family members, dead soldiers, limbs lost, and mental trauma had taken a toll on humanity. After we had gotten our planet back we did not spend our time rebuilding and trying to repopulate. We spent months mourning the loss of our loved ones and all our soldiers. We laid in depression and sorrow for our mutual loss and mental trauma. This brought humanity closer as a whole and we bonded over our suffering. Humanity had been one but at what cost. After years of processing humanity had finally been able to rebuild all of our structures, population, and even expand to different planets. After all these trials and tribulations we had finally evolved completely and after ages of loss we had finally entered a golden age of humanity. After all this we had begun to explore the deep parts of our planet and while exploring we discovered something far beyond our comprehension. Humanity had only been a small part of a vastly bigger world and a whole new world had now been exposed to us. We had breached through the ice caps of the north pole and had been greeted with hostility from a race on our planet we did not even know existed. After entering this “new world” humanity had found out the truth of our existence and creation. After finding out the truth of our creation and the prophecy of our faith we had all collectively regretted winning that war. Beyond our world laid horrors and truths we were not yet prepared for. After all this we had once again been thrown into a dark age with no will to fight. In the end this was the beginning of the end for humanity…

32 weeks and counting today. I went out with my boyfriend on Sunday morning and had coffee, which we have done every weekend for the entire pregnancy. I started feeling really nauseous an hour or so after finishing my coffee which caused us to leave early and head home. That afternoon, I got my TDap shot and felt really bad a few hours after. My heart was racing and I was hot and cold, whole body hurt and injection site was very sore. Today (Monday) I woke up feeling pretty bad but not bad enough to call out of work. Pushed through the day and was okayish. When I got home I had really sudden nausea and vomited with some other GI issues mixed in. I Ate a little bit of dinner and still feel pretty bad, making trips to the bathroom every hour. How much of this is because of the TDap shot how much of it is me actually getting sick? I am a preschool teacher so I’m around some yucky children during the day.
I have an appointment with my midwife tomorrow but I was just curious if others have had this issue and if it’s worth bringing it up tomorrow morning with my doctor?

Hello, I'm 28f and I have my very first kidney stone. On 5/7 I felt slight cramping in my back and thought it was my period, then some blood in my urine, again thought it was my period. Then awoke at 1am Wed in excruciating pain and thought I was dying. Called 911 then the cramping went away so i told them i was ok. I thought for sure a uti. Went to work no problem Wed. Woke Thursday with the same pain and went to the er to find out i have a 3mm kidney stone. They gave me nothing while I was there but prescribed me Flomax, naproxen for pain and zylotol for nausea. It is now the following Monday and it's been hell. Friday I was fine then Saturday night I was in so much pain, throwing up, crying. I was in hell. I was cramping on and off all day Sunday till this morning. The more I read the more I get scared. I just want this over with. I don't want to have to get surgery (never had one) iv been taking shots of lemon juice and lots of water. Hot baths and showers. Is there anything else that can help and please tell me there is some end in near sight...?

Meanwhile, at a UN press conference, the Secretary-General had regained some of his usual pompous attitude as he addressed reporters.
Yes, we do have reason to believe the situation is under control,” he told the enraptured crowd. “I could not be more proud of the progress everyone here has made under my guidance. There were a few senior advisors and team leaders behind him who rolled their eyes as he took credit for everyone else’s hard work. “Do we have any questions?”
”Lindsey Malone, New York Times. Do you know when we can expect life to return to normal?”
One of the advisors stepped in front of the microphone to answer before the Secretary-General could react. “We are avoiding that sort of speculation at this time. The policy of keeping technical information classified is still in place. I believe that’s all we have time for today.”
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I've been working on a new vocabulary self-learning app and could really use your help to test it out! Here’s what it’s all about:

Features:

• Word Bank: Manage words with properties like translation, transliteration (auto-romanization supported for Asian languages), audio, word class, gender, tone, and more.
• Sentence Bank: Add sentences with translations, get cross-linked words, sentence analysis and auto-translation based on the words in word bank.
• Learning Games: Flashcard reviews, typing trainer, cloze deletion tests, and language-specific games (for select languages).
• Stats: Track your vocab growth, review progress, and typing speed.
• Mastery System: Tiered progress for long-term learning.

Currently, the app is mainly tailored to Asian languages, with extensive support for Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai. Western languages with extensive support are English and Estonian (Eesti).
Depending on feedback and how much time I have that's not purely spent on bug-fixing and improving existing features, I'll add support for more popular languages very soon.
And just as not to mislead anyone: This is not an app with curated courses like Memrise or Duolingo, nor is it a purely flashcard-based app such as Anki.
With Voqab, I'm trying a novel and unique approach: You add your own words as you're learning them using other sources such as books, YouTube videos or other apps, but the app uses the best spaced-repetition algorithm available (FSRS 4.5) based on the latest research and will help you memorize these words much more effectively.
Additionally, the app knows a lot about the language you're learning, and it will be able to give you automatic links to relevant online dictionaries, suggest an automatic romanization for Asian languages, understand particles for select languages and show them in sentence analysis, provide language-specific learning resources and help you getting a good feel for the language using the typing trainer, cloze deletion test, word quiz and tiered mastery system.
Join the beta and help me make it awesome! https://testflight.apple.com/join/b0f8LlYm
Thanks!

Hey everyone. I'm not totally sure what to do with one of my kitties and would love any advice I can get. I want to give as much context as possible so I'll leave a TL;DR at the end.
I adopted Cerberus last October after the loss of my late cat. She was living in my friend's backyard in the neighborhood's TNR colony; one of the queens got missed and whoops, kittens. My friends and the people familiar with the colony are not sure who the father is as all the male cats they've seen in the colony are tagged, but the mom, Pepsi, seemed to have gotten them a stepdad, Thor, who was clearly helping her raise the kittens.
I hesitate to even call Pepsi feral because she is so unbelievably friendly. The first time I met her she ran up to me and begged to be picked up. My friend suspects she was a pet who was dumped, but whatever her origins, she clearly has a lot of trust and liking for people. She also was very tiny and we suspect really young when she gave birth, maybe six months. We are fairly certain only two kittens survived, Cerberus and her sister, Arcadia.
Pepsi brought her kittens to my friend's house regularly to eat, usually with Thor, who is more skittish but will easily allow people to approach if they have food and speak/move softly.
My friend didn't really have any takers for either kitten, but both of us strongly suspected Cerberus would be difficult to adopt out because she was so much more skittish than Arcadia. I chose Cerberus because I like problem animals (lol) and I didn't want her to be TNR forever.
I took her home October 13th when my friend estimated she was four months old. Despite my best and most patient efforts, I have never touched this cat.
I knew socialization would be difficult, but I thought with the combination of her mother's temperament and her age that I'd be able to rehab her. The first two months consisted of a lot and I do mean a lot of lying motionless on my stomach peering under the couch and the bed with treats in my hand. If there had been no response to that, I wouldn't have cared as much, but she was screaming every night at the top of her lungs, and I literally never saw her--she did not feel comfortable to move around the apartment, even when I'd been lying motionless in bed for hours. I had to put her food under the bed or couch for her. After those two months I decided I HAD to get her a kitten companion, landlord be damned, because I just felt really bad about her quality of life.
Fortunately Arcadia (her sister) had not been adopted yet, so I took her home in mid December. Arcadia immediately exhibited more bravery than her sister, although she was still initially trepidatious and did her fair share of under couch hiding. She was much more willing to approach me for treats, and by January I was hand feeding her. I'm very pleased with her current progress--she follows me everywhere, pushes her way into my lap, yells for food, is very fond of my girlfriend, and has allowed two strangers to pick her up and pet her and is apparently a little angel for the vet.
Adopting Arcadia was definitely the right decision for Cerberus--since getting her, Cerberus has started emerging to play with her and will take treats from my hand if I am very, very still. She's begun moving around the apartment while I am out and even stays still without running immediately if I stand up and move around, provided I stay at least four feet away from her. She has much less trust in my girlfriend and I admit I have probably had my girlfriend around too much, as Cerberus makes progress faster when she isn't here, although she's definitely warming up to my girlfriend as well. She does hiss literally any time people move too fast or approach her at all, but she's never swiped even when she's really freaked out, she just tends to run and hide. I feel like I can work with this.
However, I'm getting really nervous about how long she's taking to warm up with regards to vet visits. I've already put off her spay three times because I just couldn't fathom catching her and forcing her into a carrier at this point in her progress, and now it's starting to feel more irresponsible to not have her spayed and vaccinated. Arcadia went into heat literally the week before her spay, and I'm getting very nervous that Cerberus could at any minute as she's nine months old now. Her spay and initial vaccines are scheduled for this Thursday.
I've resigned myself to semi traumatizing her getting her into the carrier and have recruited a friend with copious cat experience and motorcycle gloves. I'm really, really anxious about the impact that this will have in her trust in me and how to recover that trust post spay, especially since I plan on confining her to my bathroom while she recovers and obviously I'll have to be in there at some point. The only other place I could confine her to would be my bedroom, which has the same problem. In addition to this, she'll have to go back to the vet shortly after to get her booster shot, and I feel like that will be even worse. It feels irresponsible to put off her shots any longer but I am just so scared for how far back this might set her, especially after how incredibly long it's taken her to get to this point. Help?
TL;DR: my former feral took an extremely long time to make any progress in trusting me and while she's steadily improving, she is still untouchable and I don't feel like I can put off her spay any longer. I'm scared the fact that I will have to force her into a carrier will irreparably damage our relationship.

Long time lurker, first time redditoposter. I've been listening and reading a lot of these horror stories and figured it might be fun to share mine.
I haven't actually played a game of DnD or DnD adjacent since about 2020/2021, mostly because of what transpired during the games I actually did play before that. I love the concept, I love creating characters and stories and worlds, but I get a pit in my stomach when I actually try to play again.
I had my first opportunity to play DnD my freshman year of college. I dropped in on the campus tabletop club and I was quite anxious. I was the only girl in the room, everyone seemed to have known each other or clicked well, but I wanted to branch out of my comfort zone. The first night went well! We played a very quick heist one shot where we made a character with one flaw and one interesting trait. Through unfortunate rolls and circumstances, we had a TPK, but it was a fun time. I was invited afterwards to join a Pathfinder campaign that a few of the members were going to start up for the new semester, and so I scheduled a time to meet with the DM and create my first full fledged character.
Now, the DM was kind of eccentric, a little whack if you will but very excited to help me make my first character. I thought he was just goofy and really into the game. God I wish I picked up on all the red flags that would come.
He first asked me what kind of race I'd like to play as. I had always been drawn to tiefling characters because I liked the aesthetic. His eyes lit up at that for some reason. Then he asked what class I'd like; if I'd like to be primarily a support or tank or what have you. I didn't want to get overwhelmed in my first game and thought support might be nice. I could watch how combat worked while just keeping everyone going and buffed. I said let's try bard! The grin that crept up on his face...
He immediately started talking about how saucy that would be, how my character would be so flirty and fun. I expressed some discomfort in having my character immediately fall into the "h*rny bard" category I had seen meme'd on so much, but he laughed and waved it off by saying he "was a theater kid in high school! Everyone was super h*orny and making out backstage all the time. It just comes with the environment!" Being a new player, and wanting to fit in, I pushed down my discomfort and thought okay, I'll play her as a joke character I guess.
For awhile it was fine, I got to play her as a dancelyre player who was part of a traveling circus. Nothing weird was coming up the first few sessions. Most of the other PCs either joined together by taking quests from the town job board, or had ties built in to their backstory. My first red flag should have been that the DM, despite constantly raving about all his planning, was frequently skipping around the story. He would suddenly decide the plot point we were on wasn't interesting enough for some reason, and just throw us into another scenario. We left so many lose ends because he just didn't feel like finishing them, regardless of if we were engaging in it or not. But hey, he's the DM right? That's what I thought, he had the right to change it. I had no prior experience to see this was just bad DMing.
We ended up joining an archery competition as we were tempted by a mystery grand prize. At the sign up table, out of nowhere, the DMPC attending to registration suddenly starts flirting with my character. I got flustered in a negative way because this DM got very into character (giving me looks, leaning in as he spoke to me, the whole shebang). I panicked, all of a sudden being the focus of a room full of men seeing how I'd react to it. I again, stupidly, went along with it. I had her (nervously) flirt back lightly, and I was relieved it didn't go much further at that point. Skipping to the end of the archery competition, my bard ended up in the final two and sabotaged an assassination on the town's mayor mid competition. The party was invited to a celebratory dinner at the mayor's house afterwards, where we once again ran into the NPC that flirted with my character at registration. He invited her to bed, and again I got extremely uncomfortable and flustered. None of this was discussed beforehand, nor was I even asked if I was comfortable with such topics before joining the campaign. The guys at the table were egging me on, and I felt pressured to accept. With a few hoots and hollers, we had a fade to black scene (thank god). I went home feeling very icky, but convinced myself I was being a wimp. And the table had enjoyed my antics that night, so I should be grateful.
I had the thought between sessions to write in a childhood friends to lovers interest for my bard to try and avoid any more unexpected encounters like that again, thinking if the DM had another character to play as with some personal tie to my bard, that would make be feel better about the interactions. He was brought up once, where I milked the f*ck out of my character's attachment to him, hoping to drive home that this was juicy potential relationship to build over the campaign. He never came up again during that campaign. The DM also completely disregarded many of the notes I gave him detailing this love interest's personality, and took many 'creative liberties' with him, but not enough where I would decide to say something.
Another few sessions happened where we struggled through the DMs inconsistent storytelling and jumping around to whatever plot point had his interest at the moment. He was constantly putting us in fights we could not hope to win, way too challenging for our lvl. 1-3 party. We often sat around the table in disappointment and defeat as we got absolutely destroyed by monsters (no one being able to land hits for sometimes 3-4 rounds at a time because of how high the AC or CR was), while the DM laughed and basked in the dreary nature of the table. He would usually eventually fudge rolls to give us an out when we were close to TPKs. He even gave us a deck of many things and insisted our PCs "felt compelled" to pull cards despite the players disagreeing they that wanted to. He attempted to force my character to drastically change her alignment to an evil one for shits and giggles because of one card pull (later allowed me to ignore it because I didn't even WANT to use the deck), and got three of us killed by having them pull a card that summoned the highest CR monster you could use.
One night he texts the group chat that he decided he's done running that story, and wants to run another one shot instead. We had one last session to "close" that first campaign and discuss the one shot options. During our meeting, he gleefully admitted to me that he had planned for my bard to get PREGNANT in that one night stand with the NPC from the archery competition. Not only did he plan to do that without my consent or knowledge, he had planned for it to be a HAG baby that would have entirely f*cked my PC up (he explained it as the man having been a witch in disguise or something?? And said that's how hags are made? Which to my knowledge is entirely incorrect. Maybe it was a homebrew rule, but regardless, I was mortified. And now very grateful he lost interest in that campaign).
Moving on to the one shot, another player decided to try DMing, and so the Problem DM had a chance to be a PC, yay! He privately messaged me and asked if I'd be interested in connecting our characters and their backstories. I said yes and we got to work. We spent a few nights discussing their dynamic and I was really excited to go into this game. Well, come the night of the session, we were going around the table introducing our characters. The Problem DM went before me, and introduced an entirely different character than the one we discussed, and one that would often almost kill us during the one shot (to which the guy would cackle and mock us for getting upset each time). I asked him what happened to our plan, and he said earlier that day he decided he wanted to do something different. I sighed and let it go, because at least it was just a one shot and my character could still function without his connection to the other PC. Another one shot where the Problem DM got to be a PC, he seemed to make it his goal to be the biggest asshole to everyone else's character. My PC was an archaeologist, and when she excitedly discovered some old pottery in a dungeon, he had his PC run up and smash everything and laugh in her face.
The next campaign we tried that had issues was a Starfinder campaign. Our party was considered its own crew for a space ship, plus one DMPC that was placed into the mix supposedly to help us if we fell short, since we were all unfamiliar with Starfinder and spaceship battle mechanics. She was honestly a really cool character! And we had one or two sessions to establish the story and how the crew interacted. Now, this was my mistake, not taking any of the other creepy habits of the DM into consideration, but I offhandedly mentioned to the table at large that my PC (a woman) might be developing a crush on this DMPC (also a woman). They had gone through a lot together in-game at that point and it felt natural. The next session, you'll never guess, the DMPC started flirting hard core with my character. I was confused and asked the DM what that was about, as we had never had any interactions between those two that would be read as romantic. Even if I mentioned my character was crushing, she had never let it on, and the DMPC had never indicated she felt a similar pull as well. The DM didn't really have an explanation, just that apparently in-universe, the DMPC had been flirting more and more with my character since their last adventure together alone. I thought, okay, I guess...
Honestly? What transpired would have been an insanely cool plot twist if we had had the time to actually roleplay and develop the relationship between my character and the DMPC, as well as the crew at large and the DMPC. She ended up being part of a cult that wanted to steal an artifact we had acquired. She was apparently trying to 'romance' my PC because my PC was the one who often guarded the artifact, and needed her to let her guard down. It would have been a super impactful betrayal, but it was literally only a handful of sessions between the first meeting, and the plot twist. We just had to trust the DMs word that we had all gotten super attached to her between actual session meetings and we all should feel like we were stabbed in the back by this trusted individual. And I especially should feel heartbroken because she never really was interested in me anyway.
Later on down the line, despite some very interesting story points, it got creepy again. Our PCs ended up being sucked into a death game show, and isolated from the outside world while being broadcast to universal TV stations. At some point we were all given access to the internet after a few weeks in isolation to search up anything we wanted. Everyone searched up their names among other things. The DM described us finding our newly formed fanbases. He described the other PCs fanbases (men played by men) as having hot debates on their intelligence and decisions during the show, or bets on if they'd be the last ones standing; that sort of stuff. He described my fanbase as leering creeps saying the most unhinged things about what they wanted my PC to do to them s*xually, as well as some spreading photos of my PC without her face covering (she was a Kasatha, which canonically keep their mouths covered. But she had been forced to remove it briefly when it almost waterboarded her after she fell into a river).
Eventually, we weren't able to meet consistently enough to warrant running campaigns anymore, and I fell out of touch with all involved. Oh, we also lost a player at some point right after he confessed to me and I declined his interest.
I went another year not playing before another friend group of mine invited me to play as a guest character. I thought this would be a nice way to ease back into the game slowly after my horrid experiences before. Rather than make an entirely new character for one or two sessions, I brought back my tiefling bard because I still really liked her character, and had started to reshape her personality without being pressured to have her be a s*xual chess piece. The new DM dropped my character in a labyrinth their current party had been trapped in for awhile. I was made to be a level or two higher and be an ally they encountered to help them escape. We did, it was fun! But I was only there as a guest, and had only planned my character to be in one to two sessions before leaving. I was consistently mentioning to the party that my PC would be leaving as soon as they get to her major city, but either they didn't think I was serious or didn't remember. I may have been convinced to come on full time, but unfortunately, history repeats itself. We got to a session where the party got to a tavern and drowned their sorrows and nursed their labyrinth bruises with beer, and the idea of a threesome was thrown in the air between my PC and two others. Now, half of this group were dating someone else in the group, and seemed very comfortable roleplaying casual s*x between their PCs because of it. They started a damn chant pressuring me to say yes, already trying to roleplay it, and I felt sick. I was too anxious at the idea of saying no with how aggressive everyone was for me to agree, so I tried to "roll for yes or no" as an out; the dice failed me, and it rolled a number assigned to yes. I was very quiet the rest of the session, and afterwards messaged the DM that I want my character to leave at the beginning of the next session.
The DM then tried to convince me to stay, despite me saying a clear no multiple times within the same conversation. They begged me to stay saying the party loved my PC a lot, and they would hate to lose me. When they finally relented, they then tried to smoothly transition to talk of making me a new character so I could permanently stay with the party, without compromising my bards story and decision. I kind of got on their case about that, and told them to stop pressuring me and I did not want to play with that group anymore. Eventually, they gave up, but not without some low key guilt tripping.
I tried playing with one more group after this, and while it didn't get creepy, it was also a disappointment as none of the players seemed to care besides me and the DM, despite everyone having encouraged starting the game because they wanted to learn how to play for the first time. Players slowly started ghosting us, drama happened between two players that joined just to have an excuse to talk and try and date (which ended up very messy and they both left), and the new players would get angry at me or the DM if they got confused with the rules or combat dynamics (the wizard rushed ahead of me, the tank barbarian, and then acted like it was my fault when they nearly got killed in the first round because "the tank is supposed to protect the damage dealers").
The DM and I stayed in contact after all the other players ghosted the chat, and ended up bringing over some other new players who had also played before, and re hauled the campaign. This one had so much promise...then quarantine hit, and we couldn't keep up with regular meetings.
At this point, with all my games ending with creeps, messy player dynamics or falling through, I decided maybe these kinds of games weren't for me.
I have new friends now inviting me to play, who have very functional groups (experienced professional DMs, closeknit friend groups, long-running campaigns), but I am too wary to accept any more offers for games, despite deep down really wanting to try again and be part of something I know can be amazing. Maybe I will one day, but until then, I just have these horror stories to think about.

I just just bought the G9ii after years with the GH5. I'm a very amateur sports videographer (a hobbyist at best) and I've mainly shot with the standard color profile and managed the highlights and shadows with the ISO and aperture adjustments (and shutter speed unfortunately for night games). I'm thinking that the high contrast moments with outdoor sports (baseball particularly as players sometimes come in and out of shadow or are going into the dugout) may be helped with a color profile that provides a greater dynamic range. I'm pretty new to color grading in post, so I'd like to avoid vlog. Is there a color profile that only requires minimal grading in post that has better dynamic range than the standard profile? When I've looked around online (usually not specific for outdoor sports, TBH), the common profiles that come up for my situation are CineD, Like709, natural, and HLG. I was curious if anyone has advice or experience with my scenario. Thanks!